Review: The Judge (2014)

Summary Judgment: I was surprised to read that this overwrought mess did not come from some schmaltzy mass market paperback. 

Robert Downey Jr. is a smarmy megarich defense attorney whose one claim to humanity is his relationship with his adorable daughter. He's pulled back to the All-American hometown he never wanted to return to for his mother's funeral. Why he has never once visited his mother in the 20-odd years since he left home (and never allowed her to see her granddaughter!) is unexplained, except that Robert Downey, Jr. will happily do anything to give the finger to his stern, strict dad, Robert Duvall (the titular Judge). Just as Robert Downey, Jr. is about to leave, after burning every bridge he can and hooking up with the teenage daughter of his ex-flame, he finds out that his father has been accused of homicide in a hit-and-run. So, of course, this brilliant defense attorney has to try the biggest case of his life - defending his estranged father. Da da DUM. 

It's terrible. Everyone is terrible. I didn't want Robert Downey, Jr. to get his redemptive arc because I never thought he deserved it. He has spent his life being self-involved, smug, and careless, all because of Daddy issues. At any time he could have grown up and realized that just because he was raised by an old-school grump it doesn't give him a license to treat everyone else as disposable. He didn't. And the film doesn't even bother to address half his character flaws, because it thinks it's enough for him to resolve his issues with his aging Dad. It's not. He's still a pretty awful brother and general human being. Does no one else care that if Robert Downey, Jr. sincerely gets back together with his ex-girlfriend (the requisite love interest in a film that surely didn't need a love interest), then he will be the step-father of the girl he hooked up with and who is still actively flirting with him? Is that not creepy to anyone else? Or the fact that this girl is related to him? Does it not bother his ex-girlfriend that he groped her daughter, who clearly has her own Daddy issues? No? Whatever, film. 

Grade: B -

Final Verdict: A throw-back to '90s melodrama, it's a mawkish mess. Robert Downey, Jr. and Robert Duvall give strong performances as two stubborn, unpleasant men who butt heads but are tied together by blood. But that's enough to make the movie compelling.

If You Like This, Watch: The Rainmaker, The Pelican Brief, The Lincoln Lawyer, Nebraska, This Is Where I Leave You, August: Osage County, Big Fish, Jerry Maguire